Romans 4:17-25

Romans 4:17 b - Romans 4:25. Faith in God the Life-Giver.

Romans 4:17 associates with the scope the quality of Abraham's faith. The patriarch's world-fatherhood was his in the sight of God whom he believed: God acknowledged and made good that paternityHe who makes alive the dead and summons things non-existent as though in being!

Romans 4:18. Abraham's trust in the power yoked to God's promise made his belief efficacious: against hope, he believed in hope; spiritual hope conquered natural despair. He accepted the assurance respecting Isaac's birth, though perfectly aware of its physical impossibility (Romans 4:19). His unhesitating faith honoured God (Romans 4:20), and brought righteousness to himself (Romans 4:22). In James 2:21 and Hebrews 11:17, the climax of Abraham's faith is his consent to Isaac's death; here his anticipation of Isaac's birth.

Romans 4:24. In this phase of it the patriarch's faith specifically resembles that of Christian believers. Isaac was, in effect, be gotten out of the dead (Romans 4:19; Hebrews 11:12; cf. Colossians 1:18); and the faith which now brings justification is trust in the life-giving power revealed on Easter Day.

Romans 4:25 a, alluding to Isaiah 53:4 f., presents our Lord's death in its vicarious character manwards (cf. Romans 8:3; Romans 8:32, 2 Corinthians 5:21); Romans 3:24 f., in its propitiatory character Godwards. Read prospectively, the for (because of) of Romans 4:25 b signifies to effect our (individual) justification; retrospectively, because our (collective) justification had been effected, potentially, in Christ's death (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:19): the former construction is preferable as in keeping with Romans 4:24, to whom it is to be reckoned.